Page 100 of Loving Lies (Granton University 3)

Thank God he had an end row seat because the doors were already crammed with people, shoving and fighting to get through when he looked toward them.

“Oh! Your cane.” Tess tried to jerk away from him and return to their seats. But he wasn’t having any of that.

He tightened his clamp on her fingers. “Forget it.”

But Bailey popped up behind him, waving it triumphantly. “I got it.”

When it found its way into his hand, he didn’t use it as a crutch but as a cattle prod, fencing people off when they crowded in too close. More screams and cries of terror filled the auditorium; the air was layered with the acrid stench of smoke. Behind him, something popped and sparked as if the fire reached the stage light cans, making them explode. A second later, half the lights went out. And a breath after that, the fire alarms went off, producing another round of hysteria throughout the crowd.

Pulling Tess in closer until her front was molded to his back, he made her wrap her arms around his waist and hook her fingers through his belt loops. “Do you have a hold of Bailey?” he shouted back to her over the rising sounds of chaos. When she told him she did, he nodded. “Bring her in close.”

After they passed through the bottleneck of the door into the lobby, they still had the front doors to fight their way toward. Jonah was used to being shoved and shoving back, though he usually had on hefty shoulder pads when he was doing it. But this was exactly why he’d gotten a scholarship to Granton, so that was what he did now, bowing his head and plowing forward, ignoring every stabbing pang that throbbed up his bum leg.

A girl about five people ahead of him went down and was trampled under the stampede.

Jonah, Tess, and Bailey reached her all too soon because the momentum of the crowd behind them pushed them forward so fast. Stopping to help her was like fighting a wave in the ocean. He could barely manage not to trip over an already bloody leg as he was swept along toward the entrance.

“That girl.” Tess sobbed against him, her entire body trembling. “Oh, my God. Someone needs to help that girl.”

“Jesus,” Jonah uttered. He glanced over his shoulder and barely caught sight of some hero lifting the battered body off the floor and throwing her over his shoulder. But looking back might’ve been a bad idea because Jonah was shoved hard into the person in front of him, where he accidentally knocked another girl to the ground.

“We gotta get out of this place,” he muttered, bracing his body with all this strength to keep from being pushed forward anymore. Gritting his teeth, he reached down and grabbed the fallen girl’s arm to help her back to her feet.

He, Bailey, Tess, and the girl he’d swiped off the floor couldn’t reach the open warm night soon enough, but when they did, they all sucked in their own lung full of fresh air.

The crowd kept surging, urging them along, away from the building. As soon as they hit a free pocket of space across the street, Jonah stopped his group to check all three girls over and make sure they’d come out okay. But Tess was too busy hugging him as soon as he turned around for him to look her over very thoroughly.

“Are you okay?” she demanded, patting him down. “How’s your leg? You’re not using your cane to walk with.”

“I’m fine. It’s fine,” he assured her. He glanced over her shoulder. The stranger he’d picked up off the floor was already rushing away, finding someone in the crowd she knew, so he turned his attention to Tess’s best friend. “Bailey? You okay?”

“Oh…hell,” Bailey murmured, too busy staring back at the performing arts center to answer him.

He looked over, and his chest dropped into his stomach. He almost expected to see big orange flames licking out the roof of the building, but there was nothing, not even smoke escaping yet, just a frenzied mass of people pushing and shoving and trampling each other to escape the front doors.

“I can’t believe we were just a part of that.” Tess clutched his arm, as she echoed exactly what he’d been thinking. How the hell had they come out of that place alive? He clutched her close, glad she was alive and in his arms. So very thankful…until she went and added, “I hope Aubrey got out okay.”

Aubrey? Jonah jerked a sharp glance her way. “What?”

He’d been so concerned with getting her to safety, he’d completely forgotten about his roommate…his roommate who’d been mere feet away from the castle when it had caught fire.

“Shit.” He scanned the crowds. When he didn’t spot anyone in costume, he began to panic. Big time.

“I don’t see him,” Bailey said, sounding freaked.

It was her sense of alarm that set him off, because, damn, if Bailey was losing her cool, then things had just gotten real.

He let go of Tess and started limping-slash-jogging back toward the center.

“Jonah!” she cried.

He could tell she was following, so he held up a hand. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”

People were still flooding out the front doors, a mass exodus of panicked proportions. No way could he get back in that way. But no way could he leave Aubrey inside alone.

Remembering the entrance where they were supposed to meet his roommate, he fought his way through terrified, confused, and sobbing people so he could round the side of the building. It was fairly crowd-free here. Able to move more easily up the alley, he really put his cane to work, skipping the last few feet to the side door just as three coughing, hysterical actors shoved their way outside.

He caught the door before it

---